Robert Kelly

Nocturne Suite LIII

There and While III

Thicket I

Paper Trails

Thicket Assemblage

Mimesis Noir XII

The Morning News

Much like a stonemason building a wall, my recent work seems to be anchored in a step-by-step process of composing formal puzzles. I have grown fond of the pared-down tools of line, form and color and the bountiful yield of their juxtapositions, without the need of references or symbolic otherness to give them meaning. The tension of exquisite junctions and disjunctions achieved by a process of patient build-up of papered and painted layers and edge-to-edge arrangements, makes for a fine focus of meditative work. Though the work has formal and austere footings the efforts of edit and re-edit seems to create sensual surfaces that expose a history of tactile decisions. My affection for the likes of Hans Arp, Myron Stout, Tony Smith, Brancusi, Calder and Ellsworth Kelly, plus the Bauhaus Gang, coupled with over 20 years of crafting the surfaces I paint on, gives me a small niche in this intimate investigation of form that I can call my own.